The Daily Me (Journal) Whose Sake? – 11/30/2016

Today’s prompt comes from 100 Inspirational Journal Prompts by Melissa Bolton @ The Mogul Mom

Someone that you are keeping in your life for their sake, not yours.

I can honestly say that I have given up everyone I kept for a long time for their sake and/or my own. I held on to these people believing that they would change, or I could save them or they would eventually enrich my life in some way. And then I realized, I am not doing this to help my life in anyway, I was doing it for them. I didn’t want them to suffer even though they made my life miserable. I didn’t want them to feel pain by my choice to move on. I fretted and worried. Did they fret or worry over me? Hardly. With each of them, I thought, I’ve known this person for so long, why throw away a friendship because of a, b, or c? I was only giving them more ammunition to ignore me unless it suited them, change their minds about visiting, or selfishly expect me to drop whatever I was doing to be with them whenever they chose. I was not living my life. I was always waiting on/for them.

I let one go in August of 2015. It was a difficult decision because he had been a major part of my life since my early 20s. The next one I let go in December of 2015. She’d moved away, gone on with her life, but I felt the need to keep emailing her twice a year to show her I still cared. I would receive maybe a couple words from her a year. Who’s sake was I holding on for? I had to let her go. And the last was in May of 2016. I’d tried to let her go the year before, but decided to give her one last chance. By May, it was apparent that she’d fallen back into the same ole pattern that had made me let her go the previous year.

These were difficult choices. It now means that I am down to two semi-local friends (they both live a good distance away, one 45 mins, the other 2 hrs – and I have no car). I have no social life, stay at home 90% of the time, and only get to talk to my friends on the phone or via email. I do have many online friends, but somehow it isn’t the same as having someone to share things with on a person to person level. Still, it is better than wasting away waiting on so-called friends to find the time to be with me. I’d rather be alone.